Tuesday 25 January 2011

Vandana Shiva on "The Age of Responsibility"

A world based on rights without responsibility can only lead to destruction. And when the rights are unbridled rights of giant corporations they trample on the earth and people. Wayne Visser's The Age of Responsibility calls for a vital shift from rights to responsibility. It is a must read for all.

- Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy and Soil Not Oil and board member of the International Forum on Globalization

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The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business, by Wayne Visser is available from Amazon.co.ukAmazon.com and other leading book retailers (ISBN-10: 0470688572, ISBN-13: 978-0470688571).

Monday 24 January 2011

Redefining CSR (book extract)

Responsibility is the choice we make to respond with care. This book, then, is a way of taking stock. What choices have we made – in the way we live our lives, in the way we do our work and in the way we run our businesses? How have we responded to the needs of our day – especially the social, environmental and ethical crises we face? And have our actions been taken with care – have we cared about our impacts on others?

I must admit to being slightly surprised (and a little dismayed) to find myself, 10 years after my first book, Beyond Reasonable Greed, still singing a similar refrain. I am once again arguing that business needs to ‘shapeshift’, to fundamentally rethink the purpose of business and to put into practice a genuinely sustainable and responsible ethos. There are fundamental differences though. Today, many of the problems are worse, more urgent and backed by more solid scientific evidence. In the interim, there has been a geopolitical shift away from the West, with the potential for more questioning of neoliberal economics and shareholder-driven capitalism. There are also more corporate corpses on the slab, allowing us to examine the nature of our greed disease. At the same time, awareness about our public social and environmental crises is much higher, and there are more genuine corporate sustainability and responsibility pioneers that provide living proof of what health and wellbeing could mean for business and society.

The fact is that now we know better what bad corporate magic looks like and the devastating consequences of practicing it. But we also know that magic spells can be broken by revealing the sleight of hand at work. It is my hope that by sharing some of the insights gained from the past 20 years of CSR wonder and trickery, we can move beyond magic to real responsibility – responsibility of the kind that makes a tangible, positive, sustained impact on the lives of the world’s poor and excluded and that visibly turns the tide on our wholesale destruction of ecosystems and species.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First let me say what I understand by CSR. I take CSR to stand for Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility, rather than Corporate Social Responsibility, but feel free use whichever proxy label you are most comfortable with. My definition is as follows: CSR is the way in which business consistently creates shared value in society through economic development, good governance, stakeholder responsiveness and environmental improvement.

Put another way, CSR is an integrated, systemic approach by business that builds, rather than erodes or destroys, economic, social, human and natural capital. Given this understanding, my usual starting point for any discussion on CSR is to argue that it has failed.

I will provide the data and arguments to back up this audacious claim in the paragraphs, pages and chapters that follow.

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This is an extract from Chapter 1 of The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business
For more information and ongoing updates, follow the The Age of Responsibility Blog

Copyright 2010 Wayne Visser

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Philip Kotler on "The Age of Responsibility"

Your new book deserves to become an instant classic. It brings together so many ideas, writings, and stages in the development of CSR. It is a liberal education on the relation of business to society. I hope that it is read not only by companies but becomes a required reading in business schools to prepare business students for a higher level of thinking about their future role and impact. I am happy to endorse the book: A most impressive book! I will recommend it to every company to figure out why they are practicing CSR and how to really practice it to make a difference to their profits, people, and the planet.

- Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson and Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and author of Corporate Social Responsibility



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The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business, by Wayne Visser is available from Amazon.co.ukAmazon.com and other leading book retailers (ISBN-10: 0470688572, ISBN-13: 978-0470688571).

Friday 14 January 2011

John Elkington on "The Age of Responsibility"

CSR 1.0 did remarkably well through the latest Great Recession, despite having precariously little to say on the big issues of the day and no ready-to-go blueprint for economic transformation. As a result, we are seeing a massive reboot going in the CSR industry – and Wayne Visser is a consistently reliable guide to (and champion of) the emerging CSR 2.0 mindsets and practices.

- John Elkington, Co-Founder and Director of Volans Ventures and co-author of The Power of Unreasonable People


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The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business, by Wayne Visser is available from Amazon.co.ukAmazon.com and other leading book retailers (ISBN-10: 0470688572, ISBN-13: 978-0470688571).

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Archie Carroll on "The Age of Responsibility"

The Age of Responsibility is an important book that should be studied carefully by all those seriously interested in the past, present and future of CSR. For me, the most noteworthy contribution is his “ages and stages” of CSR. Visser identifies five overlapping economic periods and classifies their stages of CSR, modus operandi, key enablers, and stakeholder targets. In forward-looking fashion, he crafts five insightful principles of CSR 2.0 and presents his DNA Model of CSR 2.0 which integrates knowledge and sets forth a more inclusive view of CSR. This book is a significant contribution to the theory and practice of CSR and it will be valued by academics and practitioners alike. I strongly recommend it.

- Archie B. Carroll, Professor of Management Emeritus, Terry College of Business and author of Business and Society



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The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business, by Wayne Visser is available from Amazon.co.ukAmazon.com and other leading book retailers (ISBN-10: 0470688572, ISBN-13: 978-0470688571).

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Joel Bakan on "The Age of Responsibility"

Wayne Visser's The Age of Responsibility elegantly and persuasively demonstrates the limits and failures of traditional CSR and also the kinds of reforms needed to create conditions for genuine corporate responsibility. Rich with insight, information and analyses, and highly readable for its excellent writing and poignant stories, the book is a crucial contribution to understanding where we are with CSR and what we need to do to move forward.


Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (book and documentary film)


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The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business, by Wayne Visser is available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and other leading book retailers (ISBN-10: 0470688572, ISBN-13: 978-0470688571).

Saturday 1 January 2011

The Meaning of Responsibility by Wayne Visser

What does "responsibility" really mean? This is an extract from my new book, The Age of Responsibility. I hope you find it interesting and inspiring. If the words resonate, feel free to share it with your friends. And watch this space for more videos.



Read the full text